One last thing I promise. I also just thought of another point I wanted to make as well. I hope this doesn't count as using up all my posts for the day but its just that the intellectual dam has broken for me and I am now being flooded with questions.

How do we reconcile AGW with Christian theology when there appears to be a significant representation of anti-Christian philosophy in the movement, i.e. Al Gore and his Gaia theory? Isn't this the obvious fulfillment of the scripture that says they worshipped the creation rather than the Creator? How can we trust him and his new age and anti-Christian supporters and where do we draw the line between truth and deception? Isn't there some truth to Cameron's skepticism about this all being a political ploy to gain control of the world's systems? And wouldn't that be consistent with the anti-christ's agenda? Don't we have to wary of that in our rush to get on the AGW bandwagon? I think that is why we need to decouple our AGW beliefs from the religious fervor it is often accompanied with and look at this rationally and with reason.

When the children of Israel were trapped in the wliderness against the Red Sea pursued by Pharoah's army, many of them naturally were afraid, but some said that God didn't bring them out of Egypt just to let them die in the desert. Is it misplaced that God has some similar future for the earth and the first world that we just don't see yet? What is a reasonable application of faith in this scenario?

Also, I am curious if anyone has considered how all these AGW predictions may factor into Biblical prophecy. Is this all part of some endtimes scenario or perhaps judgement on the mighty and proud nations? Has anyone ever heard of written anything on this? I would be interested to read it if so.

Thanks for your comments. I feel this exchange is now very productive. I think most of us agree now that openness and honesty is a better approach than automatically reacting by trying to sweep challenges to the science under the rug.

Between your and Randy's posts below I am able to seriously consider for the first time, a legitimate interpretation of the proposed AGW legislation. As Cameron has pointed out, there is a lot of political baggage intertwined with this and I have not been very trusting of it.

But assuming that both of you are right and this becomes the obvious moral course of action, let me ask the following question. What are we to make of the theological implications of AGW?

I think a good part of the resistance to AGW as a concept is rooted in the proud American Christian tradition of Dominionism and "subduing the earth". Isn't that what we have done? Looking back, was that wrong? Should we have left all that coal in the ground? That coal saved the lives of many a generation I think it is fair to say.

Further, what do we make of God's plan for the earth in light of this? Are all the catastrophic doomsday predictions of mass starvation and civil unrest and violence consistent with an all powerful loving God? What are we to make of Jesus' words where He says he feeds the birds and that He will feed us? Is Lindzen's faith that something else may work out besides the worst case scenario misplaced? Haven't we survived these Malthusian predictions before? I recently saw a similar doozy from Jimmy Carter that now makes him look really stupid. Isn't there a tad of sensationalistic overreaction in all this? How do we assess what is really prudent and what is just eco-guilt?

A few quick comments on the most recent climate change threads. As most of you know from my earlier postings, I generally take the AGW position and believe that the basic, fundamental science of AGW is sound. I have always acknowledged that when you get into the details of specific predictions and/or outcomes, there's greater uncertainty, and that I don't have the technical knowledge myself to get into the nuts and bolts of all of the different data sets and models - I prefer to let others such as Randy or Rich chime in on the specifics.

I've been following the CRU email controversy with great interest. From my perspective, I concur with Randy's earlier sentiments. Many of the emails seem to demonstrate a lack of professionalism which I find disturbing, and I believe a full investigation is needed (both of the hackers and of the scientists) but I think the whole story needs to come out before we jump to any hasty conclusions. I still see the basic scientific concepts of AGW as solid however, and I don't see that the emails change this, unless I somehow missed one that said that CO2 isn't really a greenhouse gas and weren't not really emitting a whole lot of it.

I wanted to respond more specifically to one comment John made below:

" Wouldn't Lindzen and others say that in the absence of certain evidence that we not jump to conclusions? Isn't that valid when we are talking about a very large scale impact on standards of living around the world?
>
If the recourse was something simple like just buckling up your seat belt I think we would all be on board, but when the consequences are so drastic, isn't it reasonable to make sure we are more certain with the science?"

I think there are two problems with this approach. The first problem is that the "wait until the science is more certain" idea doesn't work for climate change. By the time the science is "more certain" (and how "certain" is "certain enough" for that matter?), the damage is already done. As Randy already noted, there is a time delay between the effect and the cause (analogous in some sense to the fact that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer right away - damage that is caused in the lung today may not actually generate cancerous cells until 15 years from now). Greenhouse gas build-up in the atmosphere even at present-day concentrations has locked us into climate impacts that will last for decades if not centuries. If we wait another 10, 20, or 30 years before we decide to act, we will have loaded the atmosphere with that much more greenhouse gases the impacts of which will be even more severe and long-lasting. To use John's analogy, it's like telling
society to buckle their seatbelts after the accident has already occurred.

The second problem I see with John's statement is that there is an underlying assumption that the societal changes needed to combat climate change will necessarily bring great hardship and a significant reduction in our standard of living. I don't see that this assumption is justified. I will grant that to certain sectors of the population (i.e. those involved in coal mining or oil production), hardships would be quite likely. But other sectors would almost certainly benefit (i.e. renewable energy, energy efficiency), while some might remain neutral (i.e. health care). The question then becomes, from an overall society point of view, what is the best course of action? From my perspective, the same strategies needed to reduce greenhouse gases often overlap with other beneficial policies, such as reducing our dependence on foreign oil, reducing waste/improving efficiency, reducing air/water/soil pollution, eating healthier (less meat, more locally
grown/sustainable crops), reducing traffic congestion/increasing exercise (more bicyclists, pedestrians), etc. Although the cultural transition to such habits and means of production may be difficult in the short-term, I have a hard time seeing how such policies (whether advocated on behalf of climate change or on their own) would be negative for us in the long-term. In fact, they may even be beneficial for our quality of life in the long-term. In many ways, I see the challenge of climate change as akin to that of traveling to the Moon. It required a huge upfront expense and commitment of resources, but where would we be today without having gone to the Moon, and all of the technologies that came about in part because of space travel? Would anyone now suggest that we not have gone to the Moon because of the cost to society? Taking the leadership in climate change forces us to at the forefront of a whole host of other society issues and their attending
technologies - if we do not seize leadership on this, I fear we risk losing our competitiveness globally as others seize this role and reap the benefits of their long-term investments.

A final point to consider is this: when John says "standard of living around the world", to whose standard of living are we really referring to? Our own? Those of all wealthy, 1st world countries? But what about the standard of living of all those other people around the world - in developing nations, in nations where poverty is widespread? If climate change regulation in our countries reduced our standard of living, but increased their standard of living (though technology transfer, greater availability of resources to them brought about by our conservation, etc), would this be such a bad thing? I don't know about you, but if we lost a few thousand dollars due to societal changes rought by greenhouse gas regulation, but at the same time helped raise the standard of living for those currently in poverty in Africa, I would be all for it.

In Christ,
Christine

"For we walk by faith, not by sight" ~II Corinthians 5:7

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--- On Tue, 12/1/09, John Walley <john_walley@yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: John Walley <john_walley@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [asa] The Climate Science Isn't Settled
> To: "Randy Isaac" <randyisaac@comcast.net>, asa@calvin.edu
> Date: Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 7:54 PM
> Randy,
>
> Thanks for this very reasoned response. It makes it easy to
> trust your insight. If all the AGW scientists were as
> gracious as this I dare say we likely wouldn't have the
> controversy we do. I do have one additional question though.
>
>
> You say:
>
> "What I think he fails to deal with adequately is the
> global thermal response to an unprecedented rate of rise of
> both CO2 and methane. He claims that there is insufficient
> evidence to indicate that the result would be catastrophic.
> But has he any data to show it wouldn't be? He seems to
> imply that the thermal response has been very small despite
> a 30% rise in CO2 and that this indicates the earth isn't
> that sensitive. But a hundred years or two aren't very long
> for a large thermal mass to respond. It seems to me to be
> more wishful thinking that somehow clouds will materialize
> to save our planet. How I hope he's right. But I wish he had
> some good data to support it rather than just doubting the
> data that indicate there's a problem brewing."
>
> I agree we would all like to see more to data to help us
> settle the question of whether the result of increased
> CO2 would be catastrophic or not. But in the absence of
> this data, are we certain that the results WOULD be
> catastrophic? Do we have any more convincing evidence to
> support this opposite conclusion or is it just an
> extrapolation?
>
> Wouldn't Lindzen and others say that in the absence of
> certain evidence that we not jump to conclusions? Isn't that
> valid when we are talking about a very large scale impact on
> standards of living around the world?
>
> If the recourse was something simple like just buckling
> up your seat belt I think we would all be on board, but when
> the consequences are so drastic, isn't it reasonable to make
> sure we are more certain with the science?
>
> Thanks
>
> John
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net>
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Tue, December 1, 2009 10:23:02 AM
> Subject: Re: [asa] The Climate Science Isn't Settled
>
> This article came out the night before I was debating a
> friend of mine on global warming as guest lecturers in a
> classroom last week. He surprised me with it since I had
> missed it. Lindzen is a well known figure in this debate. He
> has a reasoned tone, at least in this piece, and raises
> specific points that can be discussed. I think that is very
> helpful and healthy for the debate. Here are some initial
> reactions I would have to this article:
>
> "It is generally accepted that a doubling of CO2 will only
> produce a change of about two degrees Fahrenheit if all else
> is held constant." I don't have the citation handy right now
> but I think the value I've seen in the literature is running
> closer to 3 degrees Centigrade. That's a big difference. I
> wonder where he gets that.
>
> He's right, I think, about the uncertainty of water vapor
> and clouds. In general, we know more about potential
> positive feedback than negative feedbacks. How we hope the
> negative feedbacks will be stronger than we think.
> Unfortunately, his uncertainty argument can go both ways.
> The situation may be more dire or less severe.
>
> "Some have suggested CO2—but the amount needed was
> thousands of times greater than present levels and
> incompatible with geological evidence." I don't understand
> what he is saying. Measured values, if I understood it
> correctly, for global temperatures 12C higher than today
> were correlated with CO2 levels of about 1000ppm, not a
> thousand times higher than today. Perhaps he's saying the
> models would require more CO2 to explain the temperature? If
> so, then perhaps the models are underestimating the effect
> of CO2.
>
> " The notion that complex climate "catastrophes" are simply
> a matter of the response of a single number, GATA, to a
> single forcing, CO2 (or solar forcing for that matter),
> represents a gigantic step backward in the science of
> climate." It seems to me that no one is suggesting a
> single number responding to a single forcing. That's a
> significant oversimplification. What I've seen in the
> literature is an analysis of many trends responding to the
> full set of forcings. I don't understand his comment.
>
> What I think he fails to deal with adequately is the global
> thermal response to an unprecedented rate of rise of both
> CO2 and methane. He claims that there is insufficient
> evidence to indicate that the result would be catastrophic.
> But has he any data to show it wouldn't be? He seems to
> imply that the thermal response has been very small despite
> a 30% rise in CO2 and that this indicates the earth isn't
> that sensitive. But a hundred years or two aren't very long
> for a large thermal mass to respond. It seems to me to be
> more wishful thinking that somehow clouds will materialize
> to save our planet. How I hope he's right. But I wish he had
> some good data to support it rather than just doubting the
> data that indicate there's a problem brewing.
>
> Randy
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "John Walley" <john_walley@yahoo.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 8:35 AM
> To: "AmericanScientificAffiliation" <asa@calvin.edu>
> Subject: [asa] The Climate Science Isn't Settled
>
> >
> >
> > This is from a well known skeptic who appears to be
> qualified in the field. He seems to be saying that the
> additional CO2 is not established as proving temp
> increases.
> >
> > "Even a doubling of CO2 would only upset the original
> balance between incoming and outgoing radiation by about 2%.
> This is essentially what is called "climate forcing."
> >
> > I am curious if there is any technical response to his
> arguments from any of the AGW proponents on the list.
> Besides the fact that he is in the pocket of the coal
> companies.
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > John
> >
> > The Climate Science Isn't Settled
> > Confident predictions of catastrophe are unwarranted.
> > http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html> > By RICHARD S. LINDZEN
> > Is there a reason to be alarmed by the prospect of
> global warming? Consider that the measurement used, the
> globally averaged temperature anomaly (GATA), is always
> changing. Sometimes it goes up, sometimes down, and
> occasionally—such as for the last dozen years or so—it
> does little that can be discerned.
> >
> > Claims that climate change is accelerating are
> bizarre. There is general support for the assertion that
> GATA has increased about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the
> middle of the 19th century. The quality of the data is poor,
> though, and because the changes are small, it is easy to
> nudge such data a few tenths of a degree in any direction.
> Several of the emails from the University of East Anglia's
> Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have caused such a public
> ruckus dealt with how to do this so as to maximize apparent
> changes.
> >
> > The general support for warming is based not so much
> on the quality of the data, but rather on the fact that
> there was a little ice age from about the 15th to the 19th
> century. Thus it is not surprising that temperatures should
> increase as we emerged from this episode. At the same time
> that we were emerging from the little ice age, the
> industrial era began, and this was accompanied by increasing
> emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2, methane and
> nitrous oxide. CO2 is the most prominent of these, and it is
> again generally accepted that it has increased by about
> 30%.
> >
> > The defining characteristic of a greenhouse gas is
> that it is relatively transparent to visible light from the
> sun but can absorb portions of thermal radiation. In
> general, the earth balances the incoming solar radiation by
> emitting thermal radiation, and the presence of greenhouse
> substances inhibits cooling by thermal radiation and leads
> to some warming.
> >
> > That said, the main greenhouse substances in the
> earth's atmosphere are water vapor and high clouds. Let's
> refer to these as major greenhouse substances to distinguish
> them from the anthropogenic minor substances. Even a
> doubling of CO2 would only upset the original balance
> between incoming and outgoing radiation by about 2%. This is
> essentially what is called "climate forcing."
> >
> > There is general agreement on the above findings. At
> this point there is no basis for alarm regardless of whether
> any relation between the observed warming and the observed
> increase in minor greenhouse gases can be established.
> Nevertheless, the most publicized claims of the U.N.'s
> Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deal
> exactly with whether any relation can be discerned. The
> failure of the attempts to link the two over the past 20
> years bespeaks the weakness of any case for concern.
> >
> > The IPCC's Scientific Assessments generally consist of
> about 1,000 pages of text. The Summary for Policymakers is
> 20 pages. It is, of course, impossible to accurately
> summarize the 1,000-page assessment in just 20 pages; at the
> very least, nuances and caveats have to be omitted. However,
> it has been my experience that even the summary is hardly
> ever looked at. Rather, the whole report tends to be
> characterized by a single iconic claim.
> >
> > The main statement publicized after the last IPCC
> Scientific Assessment two years ago was that it was likely
> that most of the warming since 1957 (a point of anomalous
> cold) was due to man. This claim was based on the weak
> argument that the current models used by the IPCC couldn't
> reproduce the warming from about 1978 to 1998 without some
> forcing, and that the only forcing that they could think of
> was man. Even this argument assumes that these models
> adequately deal with natural internal variability—that is,
> such naturally occurring cycles as El Nino, the Pacific
> Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation,
> etc.
> >
> > Yet articles from major modeling centers acknowledged
> that the failure of these models to anticipate the absence
> of warming for the past dozen years was due to the failure
> of these models to account for this natural internal
> variability. Thus even the basis for the weak IPCC argument
> for anthropogenic climate change was shown to be false.
> >
> > Of course, none of the articles stressed this. Rather
> they emphasized that according to models modified to account
> for the natural internal variability, warming would
> resume—in 2009, 2013 and 2030, respectively.
> >
> > But even if the IPCC's iconic statement were correct,
> it still would not be cause for alarm. After all we are
> still talking about tenths of a degree for over 75% of the
> climate forcing associated with a doubling of CO2. The
> potential (and only the potential) for alarm enters with the
> issue of climate sensitivity—which refers to the change
> that a doubling of CO2 will produce in GATA. It is generally
> accepted that a doubling of CO2 will only produce a change
> of about two degrees Fahrenheit if all else is held
> constant. This is unlikely to be much to worry about.
> >
> > Yet current climate models predict much higher
> sensitivities. They do so because in these models, the main
> greenhouse substances (water vapor and clouds) act to
> amplify anything that CO2 does. This is referred to as
> positive feedback. But as the IPCC notes, clouds continue to
> be a source of major uncertainty in current models. Since
> clouds and water vapor are intimately related, the IPCC
> claim that they are more confident about water vapor is
> quite implausible.
> >
> > There is some evidence of a positive feedback effect
> for water vapor in cloud-free regions, but a major part of
> any water-vapor feedback would have to acknowledge that
> cloud-free areas are always changing, and this remains an
> unknown. At this point, few scientists would argue that the
> science is settled. In particular, the question remains as
> to whether water vapor and clouds have positive or negative
> feedbacks.
> >
> > The notion that the earth's climate is dominated by
> positive feedbacks is intuitively implausible, and the
> history of the earth's climate offers some guidance on this
> matter. About 2.5 billion years ago, the sun was 20%-30%
> less bright than now (compare this with the 2% perturbation
> that a doubling of CO2 would produce), and yet the evidence
> is that the oceans were unfrozen at the time, and that
> temperatures might not have been very different from
> today's. Carl Sagan in the 1970s referred to this as the
> "Early Faint Sun Paradox."
> >
> > For more than 30 years there have been attempts to
> resolve the paradox with greenhouse gases. Some have
> suggested CO2—but the amount needed was thousands of times
> greater than present levels and incompatible with geological
> evidence. Methane also proved unlikely. It turns out that
> increased thin cirrus cloud coverage in the tropics readily
> resolves the paradox—but only if the clouds constitute a
> negative feedback. In present terms this means that they
> would diminish rather than enhance the impact of CO2.
> >
> > There are quite a few papers in the literature that
> also point to the absence of positive feedbacks. The implied
> low sensitivity is entirely compatible with the small
> warming that has been observed. So how do models with high
> sensitivity manage to simulate the currently small response
> to a forcing that is almost as large as a doubling of CO2?
> Jeff Kiehl notes in a 2007 article from the National Center
> for Atmospheric Research, the models use another quantity
> that the IPCC lists as poorly known (namely aerosols) to
> arbitrarily cancel as much greenhouse warming as needed to
> match the data, with each model choosing a different degree
> of cancellation according to the sensitivity of that model.
> >
> > What does all this have to do with climate
> catastrophe? The answer brings us to a scandal that is, in
> my opinion, considerably greater than that implied in the
> hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit (though perhaps
> not as bad as their destruction of raw data): namely the
> suggestion that the very existence of warming or of the
> greenhouse effect is tantamount to catastrophe. This is the
> grossest of "bait and switch" scams. It is only such a scam
> that lends importance to the machinations in the emails
> designed to nudge temperatures a few tenths of a degree.
> >
> > The notion that complex climate "catastrophes" are
> simply a matter of the response of a single number, GATA, to
> a single forcing, CO2 (or solar forcing for that matter),
> represents a gigantic step backward in the science of
> climate. Many disasters associated with warming are simply
> normal occurrences whose existence is falsely claimed to be
> evidence of warming. And all these examples involve
> phenomena that are dependent on the confluence of many
> factors.
> >
> > Our perceptions of nature are similarly dragged back
> centuries so that the normal occasional occurrences of open
> water in summer over the North Pole, droughts, floods,
> hurricanes, sea-level variations, etc. are all taken as
> omens, portending doom due to our sinful ways (as epitomized
> by our carbon footprint). All of these phenomena depend on
> the confluence of multiple factors as well.
> >
> > Consider the following example. Suppose that I leave a
> box on the floor, and my wife trips on it, falling against
> my son, who is carrying a carton of eggs, which then fall
> and break. Our present approach to emissions would be
> analogous to deciding that the best way to prevent the
> breakage of eggs would be to outlaw leaving boxes on the
> floor. The chief difference is that in the case of
> atmospheric CO2 and climate catastrophe, the chain of
> inference is longer and less plausible than in my example.
> >
> > Mr. Lindzen is professor of meteorology at the
> Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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Received on Wed Dec 2 06:32:49 2009